Video and Multimedia

Click on the following links. Please note these will open in a new window.

Architect of “Broken Windows” Defends His Theory

Web Link: http://www.wnyc.org/story/revisiting-broken-windows-theory/

The Cranky Sociologist is a blog compiled by three sociology professors who believe that “if sociology doesn’t make you cranky, you ain’t doing it right”. Using the HBO show “The Wire”(episode “Hamsterdam” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tpV18bqN16w and based on the work of Durkheim and Merton, the authors discussion the connection between the level of crime and anomie.

  1. How does “Hamsterdam” demonstrate Merton’s definition of anomie?
     

Crime and Place

Web Link: http://crimeandplaceashleypick.weebly.com/concentric-zones.html

Ashley Pick created a web page specifically focused on the theories regarding crime and where crime is committed.

  1. Describe concentric circles.
     
  2. Ernest Burgess proposed concentric circles in 1928, do you think that it is still applicable?
     
  3. Review the website and discuss some of the other theories presented regarding crime and the places that crime is committed.
     

Baltimore: The Anatomy of an American City

Video Link http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/faultlines/2012/08/20128218333383106.html

Fault Lines’ Sebastian Walker spends time with those on the front lines of the failed drug war to understand some fundamental dynamics of race, poverty, incarceration and economic truths in the US.

  1. Co-creator of the HBO series “The Wire” states that it’s not a “war on drugs but a war on black people”. How does this video support his statement?
     
  2. What are some of the misplace priorities that the filmmakers express in the video?
     
  3. Discuss the contrast between the speech of Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake and what is presented in this video. How do you explain the differences?
     

Community Correlates of Rural Youth Violence

Web Link: https://www.ncjrs.gov/html/ojjdp/193591/contents.html#acknowledge

D. Wayne Osgood, Ph.D., is Professor in the Crime, Law, and Justice Program of Pennsylvania State University's Department of Sociology. Jeff M. Chambers, M.A., is Research Manager in the Center on Children, Families, and the Law at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln discuss social disorganization theory in the context of juvenile crime in rural areas.

  1. What are the conclusions of this research and how do they support the assumptions of social disorganization theory?
     

Urban shootings are on the rise, but officials fail to pinpoint a cause

Audio Link: http://www.npr.org/2015/08/04/429386013/urban-shootings-are-on-the-rise-but-officials-fail-to-pinpoint-a-cause

NPR's Audie Cornish talks to Atlanta Police Chief George Turner to discuss the increase of shooting in major metropolitan areas.

  1. Name the challenges Chief Turner states exist for both the perpetrators and victims of homicide?
     
  2. Using social disorganization theory, how do you explain the increase of urban homicides?
     

Separate and Unequal

Video Link: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/separate-and-unequal/

This PBS Frontline documentary addresses the growing inequality of our school system.

  1. Discuss ways that the school system contributes to social disorganization.
     
  2. Identify the reasons why our schools are “separate and unequal”
     
  3. How does a lack of education contribute to criminal deviance.
     

Separate is not equal

Web Link: http://americanhistory.si.edu/brown/resources/teachers-guide.html

This web link is to the teachers’ guide which will help students build a deeper understanding of the struggle for social justice leading up to and following the Court’s ruling on the Brown case, and the decision’s impact on today’s society.

  1. Review Unit Two: The Battleground: Separate and Unequal Education and then apply “broken windows” to the pictures of the Black vs. the White schools.